Three Degrees of Incineration. Let’s Dwindle! Embracing Decline. Grokking Explained. Worst Commencement Speech Ever – Plus More! #209
Grüezi! I’m Adrian Monck – welcome!
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1️⃣ Three Degrees of Incineration
Scientists have quietly stopped thinking the world won’t burn.
To get an idea of where we are in the battle against climate change, The Guardian’s Damian Carrington surveyed nearly four hundred climate scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The results?
🌡️ Nearly 80% see global warming at least 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels this century;
🔥 Almost half expect at least 3°C;
🗺️ Only 6% think the 1.5°C limit will be met.
Many have big concerns over the lack of government action and see a future with more storms, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires.
🌍 The barriers to climate action:
Lack of political will (cited by nearly 75% of respondents);
Entrenched corporate interests (60%);
Short-term thinking from governments and businesses;
Disinformation and poor public understanding of climate risks.
⏭ Scientists are in despair.
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2️⃣ Asia Is Where Climate Disasters Hit Hardest
It’s 30% of the Earth’s land, 60% of the world’s people.
⏭ Southeast Asia is sweltering in a major heatwave.
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3️⃣ Embracing Decline
The population paradox of small town America.
The WSJ looks at Franklin, West Virginia. Its old people are getting older. Its smart young people are leaving. But it has a unique take on population decline.
Bring it on.
While many communities across the US grapple with the challenges of an aging populace and labour shortages, some residents of West Virginia seem to embrace the idea of a dwindling population.
As a local newspaper editor puts it:
“West Virginians don’t want immigration—of any kind... There’s a quality of life that comes from living in a sparsely populated area. You don’t have the irritations of constant human contact.”
Businesses struggle to find workers. The elderly struggle to find carers.
This is the future.
⏭ West Virginia is also losing congressional seats and electoral college votes.
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4️⃣ The Anti-Elitist Elite
Walter Kirn, defender of rednecks and Donald Trump supporters.
Walter Kirn wrote Up in the Air, which became a movie with George Clooney.
He also wrote Lost in the Meritocracy, about turning up poor to Princeton – a winning lottery ticket whose prize was insecurity.
It’s familiar to me because Kirn’s journey ends where so many do, in anger and resentment at an elite that adopted and co-opted him, and then expected him to mock the place he’d come from.
Thomas Chatterton Williams profiled Kirn in the magazine he once wrote for.
[Kirn’s] resentment against the tastemakers and gatekeepers is so unrelenting because it’s fuelled not simply by dislike but also by real affection—a sympathy for Americans in unimportant places, people without power or influence, whose opinions and lifestyles he believes are often dismissed as retrograde or irrelevant.
Williams himself admits:
“Though certainly not born into it, I have come to be ensconced within a privileged coastal ‘knowledge’ class that, in my opinion, too often sees the rest of the country as either inscrutable or irredeemable.”
Kirn’s anger has turned him to a liberal-mocking contrarianism:
“I found Kirn, the charismatic class traitor, a far more effective ventriloquist for working-class frustrations than the former, and possibly future, president.
“On a fundamental level, Kirn is right. This America that he wishes to dwell upon—and force us to acknowledge—is not what most of us who are invested with access or influence care to deal with.
“We may say the right things, but our notions of diversity, inclusivity, and justice are extremely narrowly defined.
“A growing multiethnic assortment of citizens find themselves more repelled by the status quo than they are by Trump’s return.”
This is where the journey ends. I feel a lot of sympathy for Kirn, but in the end the solution for America’s forgotten people is not playing dummy for another ventriloquist.
⏭ Kirn appears on America This Week with Matt Taibbi.
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5️⃣ Grok And Roll
Over-training. Bad for marathon runners great for LLMs.
Ever wondered about “grokking”?
Grokking is when a neural network is trained well beyond the typical stopping point. Instead of leading to burn out, it results in a remarkable improvement in its problem-solving abilities.
Instead of simply memorising the examples it’s been given, the network formulates a general solution that can be applied to new, unseen scenarios.
Pretty cool.
⏭ LLMs can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
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6️⃣ Unlocking #AI’s Industrial Secrets
The clue is in your LinkedIn profile.
Here’s a spy secret. In Northern Ireland, the British security services used to figure out terrorist operations by observing who was no longer there.
When people disappeared from the streets of Belfast or Derry, something bad was about to happen.
Industrial intelligence gathering is simpler. Just look right here on LinkedIn. That’s how the FT came up with the story below:
“Apple has poached dozens of artificial intelligence experts from Google and has created a secretive European laboratory in Zurich, as the tech giant builds a team to battle rivals in developing new AI models and products.
“According to a Financial Times analysis of hundreds of LinkedIn profiles as well as public job postings and research papers, the $2.7tn company has undertaken a hiring spree over recent years to expand its global AI and machine learning team.”
Open source intelligence is providing stories on this very platform, right now.
⏭ How to do OSINT research on LinkedIn.
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7️⃣ The Worst Commencement Speech Ever?
Chris Pan’s drug-inspired bitcoin infomercial is 100% cringe.
Skip to 8’ when the Bitcoin shilling and the groaning starts. Marvel at the faces of the faculty and crowd.
OSU graduation commencement speaker Chris Pan already posted about his “inspiration” for the speech.
The reviews?
“It was all over the place.”
“Disappointed, saddened, and embarrassed.”
“This speech will go down as one of the worst of all time.”
⏭ This writer analyzed 100 graduation speeches — here are 4 tips they share.
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If you like this newsletter – please recommend it!
Best,
Adrian
